Penguin’s Publishing Vision for the iPad

Wow – look at this demo of digitised books on the iPad… I think I just got sold on the concept (well… on all books except novels). [via Gizmondo].

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William Kostakis

Blogger William Kostakis is an award-winning, twenty-year-old young adult fiction author. His debut title, Loathing Lola, was released in 2008.

3 thoughts on “Penguin’s Publishing Vision for the iPad”

  1. I’m interested in applications of iPad with books – iPhone etc interface is far too small for me to use comfortably for reading.

    I think that non-fiction applications will be the most exciting and useful. To have interlinked references and the ability to cross-reference details will make reference texts and non-fiction book far more accessible.

    I’m not sure that I’m convinced on the use for picture books. I think that computer games with familiar characters (such as Spot) already exist and children can play a wide variety of educational games similar to those demonstrated already. There is something wonderful about opening a book with a child and allowing their imagination and interests to direct the way you experience the story. I think that embedded features/games will channel a child’s interaction with a book and limit the ways in which they use their own creativity/imagination/experience when they read.

    I’m still not sure how I feel about reading novels in this format. I can see usefulness from an environmental and storage perspective and the facility to have links to other books by the author, an author blog etc would be good. I would probably still buy hardcopies of books that I plan to re-read though.

    1. Your concerns are mine too – the ‘colour in’ Spot one scared me a little… I remember hearing something about physical colouring-in books helping kids develop spacial awareness, I could be completely making that up, but yeah, I don’t think it’s time to burn all the books just yet.

      I’m not convinced RE: novels either. If we start mvoing into a more hypermedial format, that combines film, audio and text, then – YES. This is exciting. But for novels, I still think print is the way to go.

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